Today is International Talk like A Pirate Day. In honor of the day all Pastafarians hold dear, I bring you a list of ebooks here on MR about freebooters, privateers, sea rovers, politicians, and other marauders. Arrrgh!

Shiver me timbers, laddie. You scared me too, I thought I had missed it. The shame would have been unbearable.

Thanks so much for putting all these books on one easy post. I have been looking at these books as I stumbled across them whilst browsing through the MR collection and thinking to myself, "I've really got to make some time to read some pirate books." No more excuses!

Since the temperature here is expected to be in excess of 105 for tomorrow I had intended to ensconce myself in my air-conditioned fortress and play my newest computer game but now... its pirate books all day!!!

I and my fell crew will spend the day in piraty bliss.
Fell crew: Three angry beavers who may not look all that threatening but, once they start wearing their underwear on the outside, assume their secrete identities (Baron "Once-Bad-Then-Good-Then-Bad-Again-Now-Good-Again" Beaver, Justice Gal, and Muscular Beaver) and are a terror to all that face them. Two stark and fierce sea otters, The Dread Blue One and his Clam of Incontinence and his trollop, Seaweed and her Kelp Leaf of… err… well it is really yucky feeling. Finally last and least is Mousey Chewtoy, who may only be able to inflict very small nibbles but can withstand an unlimited chewing and tossing about in the air. Our secrete weapon is Catbert, Evil Director of Human Relations. ("I see that your review is coming up.") and one trusted, if not all that useful, ally The Really Oblate Bear. ("Just call me Rob.")

If you play Sid Meier's Pirates today, every sentence of dialogue will contain "Aargh!"

On a separate (but pirate-related note): does anyone know if "A Brief History of the Murders and Robberies of the Most Notorious Pirates" by Captain Charles Johnson (speculated to be Daniel Defoe) is in the public domain? It was written in the 1700s, but I can't find it in ebook form anywhere, except on Google Books as "no preview available."

The Dead Men's Song
Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its Author Young Ewing Allison
(available in HTML, MOBI, EPUB, and other formats)

While this quote from the book is not of a piratical nature I think we can all relate to Allison's vice.

Quote:

One who has never read around the clock in a virtual debauch of novel reading cannot appreciate Allison’s “Delicious Vice;” no more can he Field’s “Dibdin’s Ghost” who has not smuggled home under his coat some cherished volume at the expense of his belly—and possibly someone else’s too! “The Delicious Vice!” What a tart morsel to roll on one’s tongue in anticipation and to speculate over before scanning the pages to discover that the vice is not “hitting the pipe” or “snuffing happy dust” but is as Allison paints it with whimsical but affectionate words, “pipe dreams and fond adventures of an habitual novel-reader among some great books and their people.”